What I did for love
by singyoutosleep
Summary: A look at Finn and Rachel's relationship right from the very start. It's T. Don't think it'll change to M but who knows?
1. Talent show

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee. I wish I did but I don't.

**Author's notes: **For those of you who usually read my Finchel fics, this is going to be a little different. They're probably always going to be shorter chapters because it's going to be a longer series of fics.

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The first time that Finn Hudson notices Rachel Berry is in the third grade. He's sitting down in one of the seats in the back of the auditorium at Lima Elementary School with Puck, who told him yesterday that they were best friends, which is like, awesome. Puck talks about guns, which Finn doesn't understand because he keeps talking to his arms and up to that point, he hasn't seen Puck shooting any bullets out of his arms, but whatever. Finn's hoping that it'll happen someday.

Anyways, he's in the auditorium and he's not really paying attention to anything. That Artie Abrams kid is doing what he calls deaf poetry jams and Finn has no clue what that is but people are booing. Then there was that Kurt kid who sounded like Faith Hill. Actually, Finn thought it was a girl until he opened his eyes and was like – whoa, it's that kid in the funny outfits that Puck pushes into the dumpster every day.

But this girl has caught his eye. He knows it's Rachel Berry. Everyone knows who Rachel Berry. She's the resident school freak. Finn kind of thinks she's pretty, but he knows better than to say that to Puck, because he'll just call him a pussy, and even if he doesn't know _exactly_ what that means, he knows that it's not supposed to be a good thing. When he looked up pussy in the dictionary, it told him that it was a synonym for cats. Finn doesn't really understand why being a cat is a bad thing, except for the fact that cats are supposed to be girl pets. So he thinks that Puck is calling him a girl. Finn doesn't want to be called a girl so he keeps it to himself that he thinks Rachel Berry has really nice eyes, and maybe he kind of wants to share his Animal Crackers with her, especially the zebra one because he's noticed that she has a zebra animal sweater, and he's like 99.9% sure that it's her favourite, and he feels sad whenever people say mean things about her. He knows that she's probably really cool, but Puck has told him that he's kind of popular, and he knows that talking to Rachel Berry will mean that he's _not_ popular, so he's never said a word to her.

But when she takes the stage, Finn can't help but ignore Puck, who's talking about peeing in his neighbour's flowers or something. She's singing a song he doesn't quite understand, but he knows it's a grown up song. It's not like Twinkle Twinkle or something. It's a _real_ song, and he can tell that she's not really paying attention to anything going on around her. She's in her own world, she's loving being in the spotlight. And she has a really nice voice. Like, _really_ nice. There's this fluttery feeling that he can't quite shake off in his chest and he swallows hard, his mouth feeling dry as he watches her. She's holding on to the ends of her hair and he thinks to himself that that's really, _really_ cute.

By the time the song is over, Finn is pretty sure that he now wants to hold her hand on the playground and call her his girlfriend and stuff, and gosh darn it he's going to go talk to her. If he can just show people that Rachel is as cool as he knows she probably is, he's sure he can still be popular and he can make her popular too.

Then Quinn Fabray, Brittany Pierce, and Santana Lopez come on stage in their cheerleading skirts and they're doing this dance and he can _totally _see their butts when their cheerleading skirts flip up and suddenly, Rachel Berry is the furthest thing from his mind.


	2. Synagogue Heartbreak

The first time that Rachel Berry notices Finn Hudson, she is four years old. She's smoothing down her skirt, fixing one of her pleats so it sits perfectly on her leg, when she hears his name being called by their pre-school teacher, Mrs. Stevenson, and she looks up. There's nothing extraordinary about him – she thinks that Jewish boy, Noah Puckerman, is _much_ cuter, and honestly, she feels that it's destiny that they should end up together. After all, they are both good looking and of the same faith. Her fathers have always stressed to her that she's free to marry whomever she wishes, but she feels it would be better to have someone who understands her. Someone who goes to the synagogue rather than a _church_. Maybe if she had a Jewish husband, she wouldn't feel so different.

Even at that age, she knows she's not like everyone else. She has two fathers, and everyone else has a mother and a father. The other kids in her class tell her that it's not _normal_ to have two dads, because the stork needs a mommy to to give the baby too when he brings it. Rachel knows that they're right. Deep down, she knows that she must have a mommy, and she misses her. She doesn't even know what she looks like, but she feels like there's a hole in her life. The button fell off of her favorite sweater and her fathers didn't know how to fix it, so they had to take the shirt to a seamstress. And it took her a _week_ to fix it. That meant that she was without her favorite piece of clothing for seven whole days. Unacceptable.

Rachel goes back to playing with her pleats, before combing her fingers through her hair gently, wincing as she finds a knot. She thinks to herself that maybe it would be good to ask Noah if he wanted to accompany her to the Sunday service with her fathers at the synagogue. It was never too early to start securing one's options, but her thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of crying. No one else seemed to notice, too immersed in playing house, or playing with Legos, or whatever else they were doing, but Rachel's eyes veered straight to the corner of the room, where Finn was clinging tightly to someone that Rachel assumed was his mother. She didn't know why he was crying, but she envied the fact that he had a mother to cry with.

Four days later, when Rachel's fathers brought her to James Hudson's funeral, Rachel understood why Finn was crying.

He no longer had a father. She had never had a mother. She knew how Finn felt. That day, she didn't even think about Noah Puckerman once. Instead, she wondered if there was anything she could do to help Finn with his loss.

When she inquired with Mrs. Hudson if she wanted to move in with Finn to the Hudson house, so she could have a mother, and Finn would have not one, but _two_ dads, and Mrs. Hudson burst into tears, Rachel decided that perhaps trying to help Finn Hudson was, in fact, not such a great idea.

The next day, she spent her recess hour trailing Noah Puckerman. She was heartbroken when he declined her offer to accompany her to the Sunday service _four_ times, even after she promised him a plate of her signature cookies.

She was going to be forever alone.


	3. Freshman Year

**Author's Note: **Thank you very much for your kind reviews. Keep R&Ring.

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The next time that Finn Hudson notices Rachel Berry is in the ninth grade. Due to zoning regulations, they went to separate middle schools, so this is the first time he's seen her in years. He's got his eye on Quinn Fabray and is watching the pleats of her Cheerios skirt swish back and forth as she walks, when Rachel walks by and distracts his view momentarily. Honestly, he notices more because he remembers that she was wearing almost the exact same sweater years earlier at the talent show. Maybe she knits them herself so she just keeps making the sizes bigger and bigger. She hardly seems to have grown, or maybe he's just grown a lot. He's had that growth spurt now.

Actually, that really hurts, and as he thinks about it, his leg, predictably, starts aching. He looks down at it instinctively. "Crap," he swears, realizing that he forgot his bio-freeze at home. Football tryouts are going to be a killer without it. He's heard that they're looking for a quarterback, and that's the only position he's ever played, so he figures that he might have a shot with it now that the spot's free. Puck says he's going to try out too, which is awesome.

He pretends to lean down to tie his shoe so he can rub his leg, since that sometimes helps. He rubs back and forth, and the pain goes away. He sighs in relief and stands back up, looking up to find Rachel. He's older now and it's freshman year, so surely the whole 'uncool' thing doesn't apply. He wants to introduce himself and try to remember that he can't tell her that he kind of had a crush on her as a kid, and she turned out to be totally hot now. That is definitely _not _a good thing to say when trying to impress a girl. No, he's just gonna introduce himself and – shit, where did she go?

He's still not used to swearing, but Puck's been trying to get him to loosen up. He always has to censor himself around his mom now. He totally dropped the F-bomb the other day and his mother almost A-bombed him. He's never doing that again.

He cranes his neck slightly to see if he can see her. He doesn't, but he _does_ see Quinn Fabray's blonde hair bobbing in her ponytail. He's following her like a lost puppy before he even realizes it. It takes him almost a whole year to work up the courage, even though she's been making flirty eyes at him for a while, but he finally asks her out. By summer vacation, they're dating and Quinn's talking about being prom king and queen.

Rachel's the furthest thing from his mind.


End file.
